Explore the Students' Perceptions, Experiences, and Feedback Regarding the Integration of Soft Skills and Language Learning
Keywords:
Student Awareness, Soft Skills, Hard SkillsAbstract
The importance of students acquiring soft skills is growing in today's more global industry. Employers nowadays are looking for graduates with strong soft skills as well as hard ones. Soft talents, as opposed to hard skills, are becoming increasingly important to certain firms. Most courses naturally include soft skills, which are useful for students who aren't technically minded. The situation may be different, however, for students majoring in technical fields. Their curriculum is heavily focused on practical skills. As a result, fewer pupils understand the value of soft skills. The research team behind this study hopes to learn how engineering students feel about the value of soft skills. The sample for this study consists of 150 engineering students from the University of Kuala Lumpur's Malaysia France Institute. Though they disagreed on the relative importance of the various components, students generally agreed that teachers played a crucial role and that they improved their cultural awareness, reading and listening comprehension, and ability to work independently. The data is collected via a questionnaire. The findings indicate that students are aware of the importance of soft skills for both their academic performance and their future careers. Two approaches that have been suggested as ways to help students develop their soft skills include problem-based learning and incorporating entrepreneurial elements into technical subjects.
References
Huo, X. (2020). Study Findings 1: Students’ Perceptions of the Role of English and English Language Instructors’ Characteristics. In: Higher Education Internationalization and English Language Instruction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60599-5_6
Maryam Tajzad1 & Seyyed Ali Ostovar-Namagh (2014), Exploring EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Integrated Skills Approach: A Grounded Theory, English Language Teaching; Vol. 7, No. 11
Murugan, Dr. M Sakthivel (2020), Empirical study on students’ perception of soft skill training and its Impact of Employability of college students in Tamil Nadu. ADALYA JOURNAL Volume 9, Issue 3, March 2020. ISSN NO: 1301-2746, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3934197
Beauvois, M. (2016). Personality types and megabytes: Student attitudes toward computer mediated communication (CMC) in the language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13(2-3), 27-45.
Beauvois, M. (2018) Conversations in slow motion: Computer-mediated communication in the foreign language classroom. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 54(2), 198-217.
Cononelos, T., & Oliva, M. (2013). Using computer networks to enhance foreign language/culture education. Foreign Language Annals, 26(4), 527-533.
Conrad, D. (2019). The student view on effective practices in the college elementary and intermediate foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 32(4), 494-512.
Coverdale-Jones, T. (2020). The use of video-conferencing as a communication tool for language learning: Issues and considerations. IALL Journal, 32(1), 27-40.
Azami, Z. (2018). A gap study between employers’ perception and expectation of engineering graduates in Malaysia, in Proc. International Conference on Engineering Education, Heraklion, Greece, pp. 404-407.
Pachauri, D., & Yadav, A. (2014). Importance of soft skills in teacher education programme. International Journal of Educational Research and Technology, 5(1), 22-25.
Retnawati, H., Hadi, S., & Nugraha, A. C. (2016). Vocational High School Teachers’ Difficulties in Implementing the Assessment in Curriculum 2013 in Yogyakarta Province of Indonesia. International Journal of Instruction, 9(1).
Seetha, D. S. (2013). Necessity of soft skills training for students and professionals. International Journal of Engineering, Business and Enterprise Applications (IJEBEA), 171-174.
Tevdovska, E. S. (2015). Integrating soft skills in higher education and the EFL classroom: Knowledge beyond language learning. SEEU Review, 11(2), 97-108.
This work is licensed under a 